Птолемеї та хеб-сед: характер застосування ритуалу сакрального оновлення в елліністичному Єгипті

Abstract

The roots of the Egyptian feast sed-festival date back at least to the Early Dynastic Period. This celebration was a multicompound ritual designed to restore the sacred qualities of the pharaoh that were necessary to maintain the world order (Maat). The first celebration of sed-festival usually took place on the thirtieth anniversary of the ruler’s reign, and then was repeated every three or four years. At the same time, there were cases of earlier sed-festivals. Probably, they were caused by the need to strengthen the manifestations of the sacred nature of the pharaoh in order to overcome the political, economic, social or environmental cataclysms. Sed-festival has been practiced throughout the history of ancient Egypt, from the pharaohs of the first dynasty to the pharaohs of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies. Despite their foreign origin, the Ptolemies (like the Libyan pharaohs of the Third Intermediate Period) made extensive use of the ideological potential, which was associated with this feast. First of all, it is worth mentioning that the royal Egyptian titles of the Alexandrian rulers, beginning with Ptolemy III and ending with Ptolemy XII (with the exception of Ptolemy XI), contained the epithet: “Lord of sed-festivals”. In addition, with a greater or lesser degree of probability we can talk about the implementation or the imitation of sed-festival by Ptolemies: II, III, IV, VIII, IX, XII and possibly VI. At the same time, behind each of these reliable or hypothetical cases there are interesting additional circumstances. In particular, there are few variants of dating the famous sed-festival of Ptolemy II. In the case of the sed-festivals of Ptolemies: III, IV and XII (if really they took place), there is an early celebration of the respective action. At last, with this measure Ptolemy VIII, IX, XII and possibly VI reinforced the fiction of the continuity of their reign.